Stieg Larsson - Biography - IMDb Stieg Larsson Jump to: Overview (3) | Mini Bio (1) | Trivia (5) | Personal Quotes (1) Overview (3) Karl Stig-Erland Larsson Mini Bio (1) Stieg Larsson was born on August 15, 1954 in Umeå, Västerbottens län, Sweden as Karl Stig-Erland Larsson. He was a writer, known for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011), The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2009) and The Girl Who Played with Fire (2009). He died on November 9, 2004 in Stockholm, Stockholms län, Sweden. Trivia (5) Finished his so-called Millennium Trilogy shortly before his death in 2004. All three novels were published posthumously. He had finished three-quarters of a fourth book before his death and had notes for two more and had planned a series of ten. Witnessed a rape when he was 15, and was helpless to stop it. This event haunted him for the rest of his life.

The girl being raped was named Lisbeth, which he later used as the name of the heroine on his Millenium trilogy. Sexual violence against women is also a recurring theme in his work. Once remarked to a colleague that he would like to see stories about famous children's literature characters when they had grown up. His novels appear to have put this into practice. His hero, Mikael Blomkvist, is named for Kalle Blomkvist (AKA Bill Bergson in English translations), a child detective appearing in novels by Astrid Lindgren . The heroine, Lisbeth Salander, sounds as if she was named, at least in part, after Blomkvist's companion Eva-Lotta Lisander. She was also named for a real-life rape victim Larsson knew. She is modeled in most other respects after another Lindgren character, Pippi Longstocking. Both girls are natural redheads who frequently outsmart authority figures who underestimate them. Salander also puts the name "V. Kulla" on her second apartment, a reference to Longstocking's home Villa Killekulla.

In May 2008, it was announced that a 1977 will, found soon after Larsson's death, declared his wish to leave his assets to the Umeå branch of the Communist Workers League. As the will was unwitnessed, it was not valid under Swedish law, with the result that all of Larsson's estate, including future royalties from book sales, went to his father and brother. Spent part of 1977 in Eritrea, training a squad of female Eritrean People's Liberation Front guerrillas in the use of grenade launchers. Personal Quotes (1) To exact revenge for yourself or your friends is not only a right, it's an absolute duty. See also Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy Deluxe Boxed Set : Stieg Larsson : 9780307595577 Add to basket Add to wishlist Description Readers all across America are talking about Stieg Larsson s #1 best-selling trilogy "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, "and "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet s Nest" which has more than12 million copies in print.

Now, just in time for the holidays: a deluxe, slip-cased set of the three hardcover novels each unjacketed, bound in full cloth and uniquely stamped, with maps and individual full-color endpapers as well as "On Stieg Larsson, " a previously unpublished collection of essays about and correspondence with the author. The perfect collectible for the Stieg Larsson fan and the ideal gift for those who have yet to meet his heroine, Lisbeth Salander, one of the most fascinating characters in modern genre fiction ("San Francisco Chronicle")." show more Product details 180 x 260 x 140mm | 1,202g Publication date Widow of Stieg Larsson Discusses His Legacy - SPIEGEL ONLINE Widow of Stieg Larsson Discusses His Legacy Death and Money Stieg Larsson's Controversial Legacy Stieg Larsson, the Swedish author of the Millennium trilogy, only became world-famous after his death in 2004. His long-time companion Eva Gabrielsson is still fighting for her share of the inheritance, but says she no longer plans to finish his fourth book. Comment Eva Gabrielsson is already waiting on a sunny park bench.

She is a middle-aged woman with a penchant for black clothing, both mild-mannered and proud, approachable and shy. Sticking her book into her bag, she suggests taking a walk to show me a building on a hill at the end of the promenade. It has a wonderful view of the Baltic Sea and the series of islands that make up Stockholm. Up there, says Gabrielsson, pointing to the large building, is where Lisbeth Salander lived. Using an assumed name, Lisbeth Salander bought an enormous apartment in the building. She hid there, a place where she felt safe from the members of the murderous sect within the Swedish intelligence service who wanted to kill her, or at least lock her away in an institution. Gabrielsson talks about how Lisbeth Salander simply showed up in her life one day and took possession of it. She admires Salander for her indomitable spirit and the right she assumes to eradicate the injustice that was done to her. The building on the hill really exists, but Lisbeth Salander is a fictional character, a creation of Stieg Larsson, and a brilliant one at that.

A hacker with a photographic memory and little use for other people, this young, anarchic woman is the heroine in Larsson's Millennium trilogy, in which she fights to the death with intelligence agents, the police, her father and her half-brother. But Salander also wreaked havoc on the lives of Larsson and Gabrielsson. Gabrielsson has to smoke a cigarette now. She lived with Larsson for 32 years. Together, they moved from rural northern Sweden to Stockholm. Larsson was a moderately successful journalist who, at some point, began to write a crime novel. He invented a few characters, but they all seemed too virtuous for his taste. Most were the kinds of characters he would have encountered in his surroundings, little more than extensions of his real life. But Salander was his inspiration, the product of his fantasy, and she became a third party in the relationship. Posthumous Success When Larsson felt pleased with a chapter, he would give it Gabrielsson to read. He became increasingly confident in the crime story, until he eventually said that he had 10 books in his head about Salander and the insanity she encounters. But then he died.

One day when the elevator in his building was out of order, Larsson had to climb the 197 steps to his office. He had a heart attack when he reached the top. He had just turned 50. Shortly before his death, Larsson had submitted the third volume in the trilogy to his publisher Norstedts, but not a single book had yet been printed. Today more than 63 million copies of the Millennium trilogy have been sold. Death carries great power. It was probably inevitable that the small world in the small country of Sweden in which Eva, Stieg, their friends and Stieg's family had lived for so many years would fall apart in an instant. The explosion didn't happen immediately, but only after the Millennium trilogy had become a global success. Gabrielsson describes the effects of Larsson's death and of the millions generated by his books in her own book, "'There Are Things I want You to Know' About Stieg Larsson and Me," which will be released in German translation next week. The book is based on the diary she kept after Larsson's death. She was in the central Swedish city of Falun on that day, Nov. 9, 2004.

By the time she arrived at the hospital, it was too late. It was a death without goodbyes, and she remained shaken by it for a long time, during which she was in therapy. Her book conveys her efforts to regain control over her life, and it contains many moving passages. But Gabrielsson aims to achieve more than that with this book. She wanted to examine what actually happened during that time, she says. After this point in the conversation, her quietly spoken sentences are peppered with a few strong words that tolerate no objections, words like truth, justice, human rights and core values. Blood Trumps Love Gabrielsson and Larsson weren't just a couple, but also a leftist action group. First they were Maoists and then Trotskyists, voicing their criticism of the Swedish welfare state from a leftist point of view. She was an architect, while he worked for a news agency. They managed to make ends meet, and had no children. Like many Swedes of their generation, they were anti-bourgeois. In their social circle, while couples may have been monogamous, they didn't marry.

But under Swedish law, a member of an unmarried couple doesn't inherit anything from his or her deceased partner, no matter how long the couple was together. Blood trumps love, unless a will exists, but Larsson hadn't written one. For that reason, the rapidly growing proceeds from the sale of the books and the film rights went to two biological relatives, Larsson's father Erland (his mother Vivianne is dead) and his younger brother Joakim. "The money went to us, but we didn't ask for it," says Erland Larsson, 76. They could have turned down the inheritance, but that wasn't what they wanted. The father and the brother still live in northern Sweden, in a city called Umea. The father occasionally visited his son in Stockholm and tried to convince him to get married, but the son only laughed at his father's suggestion. The brothers, Stieg and Joakim, were not close and rarely saw each other. After Larsson's death, when his novels suddenly became such a huge success, the widow who isn't a widow under the law sat down with Erland and Joakim Larsson to discuss what should happen next. An agreement seemed possible.

But then attorneys took over the case, and an inheritance war ensued -- one in which the Stieg Larsson fan community has participated extensively. Two camps have since formed in Sweden: the (primarily female) Eva camp, with its own website ( ), and the (primarily male) Larsson camp ( ). The inheritance dispute is being waged publicly. It culminated when Gabrielsson and Joakim Larsson went on Swedish television to explain their respective positions on the dispute. The widow, invoking a higher form of justice, said that the money had made the two Larssons greedy. Joakim Larsson defended his right to the inheritance and, in his modesty, came across as likeable. A Moral Legacy The lives of the Larssons in Umea have changed very little. They haven't bought any new houses or new cars. They've established a foundation and support projects that fit Stieg Larsson's image. They offered Gabrielsson a portion of the assets and a seat on the foundation board of directors several times, but she refused to agree to a compromise. Almost eight years have passed since Stieg Larsson's death. One would think it would be enough time to resolve the dispute.

No, says 58-year-old Gabrielsson, there is no peace in sight, nor is there a bridge between the parties or even a mediator. Death and money, she says, bring out of people's true character. She explains what she means in her book. One day, Stieg's brother proposed that she marry his father so that she could gain access to the Millennium treasure, she writes. A marriage of convenience, he was quick to add. Joakim Larsson, 55, says it was a joke, an attempt to relieve tension during a difficult meeting with the attorneys. Gabrielsson argues that it isn't about all the money, but about Larsson's moral legacy. She insists that she knows best who Stieg Larsson really was and what he intended to achieve with his books. If she is to be excluded from the material side of his inheritance, she says, at least she wants to retain the right to interpret his work. She says that she finds it strange that she is now expected to share Stieg Larsson with millions of readers who have formed an image of Larsson as a writer that has little to with Stieg, her soul mate.

Readers see him as the inventor of a fantastic story filled with horrific murders and depraved people, a story that keeps coming back to Lisbeth Salander's life story. Everything else, the right-wing conspiracy among intelligence agents, the flood of prostitution and corruption, merely serves as the glaring background to the story. Crime novels are entertainment, a venue for good to prevail over evil, nothing more. Gabrielsson says that the real Stieg Larsson was concerned about injustice in society, both in life and in his books, about truth between people and about solving the crimes that men commit against women. All three books were originally supposed to be titled "Men Who Hate Women." It was Larsson's wish, but one that his publisher, Norstedts, did not fulfill. Larsson's main character, Salander, isn't a victim. She is a furious woman, a warrior who strikes back with the same brutality she was forced to endure. She is no victim, but rather a perpetrator, a character in a grim world who is turned into something mythical. Real Author in Question Who was Stieg Larsson? What did he want? And did he even write his books himself?

Many legends have arisen in the years since his death, and Gabrielsson has contributed to some of them. As a journalist, the real Stieg Larsson was not a great writer. He was saddled with the reputation of not being able to write at all, and it was the blemish of his life. He worked in layout at a press agency for 20 years. He added graphics, sidebars and similar secondary material to articles others had written. On the side, he also wrote selected reviews of new crime novels or new science fiction books, but that was the exception. When he wanted to switch jobs and become one of the editors at the agency, his boss turned him down, saying that writing just wasn't his thing. Later on, he became one of the founders of Expo, a small leftist publication devoted to the fight against right-wing extremism. Larsson's strength was in research, and his knowledge about neo-Nazis in Scandinavia was encyclopedic. And this was the Stieg Larsson who was supposed to have written the multilayered, sensationally successful trilogy?

When he was dead and his books became successful, a few of Larsson's friends gave interviews and others wrote books, all claiming that they had no knowledge of Larsson's literary skills and wondering who the real author was. Some suspected it was Gabrielsson. She had co-authored a number of books about urban planning and was considered the more intellectual of the two. Soon she too was giving interviews that attracted attention. She never claimed directly that she had written the books or even played a major role in co-writing them, but she did drop elaborate hints that her part in the books had not been insignificant at all. It sounded as if she had been Larsson's ghostwriter. These interviews are embarrassing to Gabrielsson today. She says that she constantly discussed the progress of the book project with Stieg. In fact, she says, they were so close that there were times when she didn't know which of them had expressed a new thought. After Larsson's death, says Gabrielsson, she found notes for other projects that she believed were his, but with her name at the bottom. A Fourth Book? Gabrielsson finds the struggle over interpretation difficult, because it is also a struggle to survive.

"When I lost him, a huge part of me was lost with him," she writes in her book. She fought against despair with a ritual that she describes in her book. She found it in the "Edda," an ancient Norse collection of epics. It describes a curse, a "Nid," against one's enemies. A stake with the head of a horse impaled on it is rammed into the ground, with the head pointing in the direction of the mortal enemy. On a New Year's Eve night, Gabrielsson went with a group of friends to the tip of Stockholm's Reimersholme island, where, in the torchlight, she read a long Nid she had written for the "Evil, sly, (and) cowardly": "You who think yourselves above others/You who lead them to misfortune and death." Larsson planned to write 10 books about Salander's adventures. When he collapsed in his office, he was carrying his laptop in his backpack. There are still many rumors on that laptop, which has become famous because the hard drive allegedly contains the almost complete fourth volume, which Larsson had been working on during the last few weeks of his life.

The laptop went with him to the hospital, where Gabrielsson allegedly had it in her hands. And where is it now? Gabrielsson says that she doesn't want to talk about it. In her book, she writes that the fourth volume will be called "The Vengeance of God," in which Salander will free herself of her enemies and demons. According to Gabrielsson, Larsson had already written 200 pages. She also writes that she is capable of finishing the book. But will she? Oh no, says Gabrielsson, she has changed her mind about that. "Stieg is dead. There are three books. We should leave it at that." Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan Article... Stieg Larsson | Millenium Trilogy Wiki | Fandom powered by Wikia The Millennium Trilogy Karl Stig-Erland Larsson (known to the world as author Stieg Larsson) was a Swedish journalist and writer, born August 15, 1954 in Skelleftehamn outside Skellefteå in Sweden. He is best known for writing the Millennium Trilogy of crime novels, which was published posthumously.

Four years after his death, he was the second best-selling author in the world in 2008, behind Khaled Hosseini, and by March 2010, his Millennium trilogy had sold over 27 million copies in more than 40 different countries. Larsson's first name was actually Stig which is the standard spelling, however in his early twenties, he changed it to avoid confusion with his friend Stig Larsson, who went on to become a famous author many years before Stieg did. At the time, the two friends were amateur photographers and with such similar names, they wished to prevent any misunderstanding. At this point, neither had yet to published a book, but they wished to avoid confusion as they were working in the same field. Stieg, in later years, would tell the story that the two men had tossed a coin to decide who was to change his name, but this account is disputed by Stig Larsson. Unable to avoid all confusion, the pronunciation of both versions is the same regardless of spelling.

Contents Edit Larsson started out as a political activist for the Kommunistiska Arbetareförbundet (Communist Workers League), as well as a photographer, and proclaimed himself one of Sweden's leading science fiction fans. Politically, he was the editor of the Swedish Trotskyist journal Fjärde Internationalen, a journal of the Swedish section of the Fourth International. He was also a regular writer for the weekly Internationalen. In 1977, Larsson spent time training a squad of female Eritrean People's Liberation Front guerrillas in the use of grenade launchers in Eritrea until he was forced to abandon that work dafter having contracted a kidney disease. After his return to Sweden, he found work as a graphic designer at the largest Swedish news agency, Tidningarnas Telegrambyrå (TT) between 1977 and 1999. Larsson's political convictions and journalistic experiences led him to found the Swedish Expo Foundation, an organization similar to the British Searchlight Foundation.

This was established to "counteract the growth of the extreme right and the white power-culture in schools and among young people." He also became the editor of the foundation's magazine, Expo, in 1995. In his off time, he worked on his own independent research project chronicling right-wing extremism in Sweden. His research resulted in his first book Right-wing extremism ("Extremhögern") in 1991. Larsson would quickly become instrumental in the documentation and ultimate exposure of Swedish extreme right and racist organizations. He was also an influential debater and lecturer on the subject, reportedly living for years under death threats from his political enemies. Legacy Edit Upon his unexpected death, Larsson left behind manuscripts of three completed but unpublished novels in an unnamed series. He had written them for his own pleasure in his spare time after returning home from his job in the evenings, and made no attempt to have them published until shortly before his death. The first was published in Sweden in 2005 as Män som hatar kvinnor ("Men who hate women"), published in English as The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo . It garnered the prestigious "Glass Key" award as the best Nordic crime novel in 2005.

Following in suit, his second novel, Flickan som lekte med elden ( The Girl Who Played with Fire by it's English title), won the Best Swedish Crime Novel Award in 2006. The third novel in the Millennium trilogy, Luftslottet som sprängdes ("The air castle that was blown up"), published in English as The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest , was published in the United States in May of 2010. Larsson left about three quarters of a fourth novel on a notebook computer, now possessed by his partner, Eva Gabrielsson; synopses or manuscripts of the fifth and sixth in the series, which he intended to contain an eventual total of ten books, are also rumored to exist. The Swedish film production company Yellow Bird has produced film versions of the Millennium Trilogy, co-produced with The Danish film production company Nordisk Film and TV company, which were released in Scandinavia in 2009. Sony Pictures Entertainment has obtained the rights to make its own big-budget English language version of the trilogy, news which has received mixed reactions from fans of the series.

Posthumous Fame Death Larsson died in Stockholm November 9, 2004 at the age of 50 of a sudden heart attack. Rumors continue to circulate, because of death threats received as editor of Expo, that his death was in some way induced. These theories have always been denied by Eva Gedin, his Swedish publisher.

<img data-rte-meta="%7B%22type%22%3A%22image%22%2C%22wikitext%22%3A%22%5B%5BFile%3AImages6.jpg%7Cright%5D%5D%22%2C%22title%22%3A%22Images6.jpg%22%2C%22params%22%3A%7B%22alt%22%3A%22Images6%22%2C%22align%22%3A%22right%22%2C%22caption%22%3A%22%22%7D%7D" data-rte-instance="24429-934438775201962fd3404" alt="" src=" " width="291" height="173" class="image alignRight" data-image-name="Images6.jpg" data-image-key="Images6.jpg" type="image" /> Controversy In May 200

8 it was announced that an alleged will had been found, written in 1977.

In the will, which surfaced suspiciously soon after Larsson's death, "Larsson" declares that his wish is to leave his assets to the Umeå branch of the Communist Workers League (now the Socialist Party). Since the will was not witnessed, it was not valid under Swedish law, and as a result all of Larsson's estate, including future royalties from book sales and films, go to his father and brother. Larsson's long term lover Eva Gabrielsson (pictured), who found the will, has no legal right to the inheritance, sparking controversy between her, and his father and brother. According to reports, the two never married because it would have been a security risk since, under Swedish law, couples entering into marriage are required to make their current addresses publicly available. Owing to his reporting on extremist groups and the death threats he had received, the couple had obtained legal anonymity in regard to their addresses, personal data and identity numbers from public records, in an attempt make it harder for individuals in the public sector to trace them. This "identity cover" was crucial in his work as a journalist and would have been difficult to bypass if the two had lawfully married or become legally registered partners.

A recent article in Vanity Fair magazine discusses Gabrielsson's dispute with Larsson's relatives, which has also been well covered in the Swedish press. In it, she claims the author had little contact with his father and brother and requests the rights to control his work so it may be presented in the way he would have wanted. Larsson's story was also featured on the October 10, 2010 segment of CBS News Sunday Morning. In this segment Larsson's family claims the fourth and as yet unpublished book is actually the fifth book. Literary Background Edit Throughout his written works, as well as in several interviews, Larsson acknowledged that a significant number of his literary influences were American and British crime/detective fiction authors. Similarities can be drawn between Lisbeth and Carol O'Connell's "Mallory," who first appeared in Mallory's Oracle in 1994. In his own work he made a habit of inserting the names of some of his favorites within the text as an homage, sometimes even by making his characters actually read the works of his own favorite authors. Most notably were Sara Paretsky, Agatha Christie, Val McDermid, Dorothy Sayers and Enid Blyton.

One of the strongest influences originates from his own country: Pippi Longstocking, by Sweden's much-loved children's author Astrid Lindgren. Larsson explained that one of his main recurring characters in the Millennium series, Lisbeth Salander, is actually fashioned on a grown-up Pippi Longstocking as he chose to sketch her. There are also similarities between Larsson's Lisbeth Salander and Peter O'Donnell's Modesty Blaise. Both are women from disastrous childhoods who somehow survive to become adults with notable skills, including fighting, and who accomplish good by operating somewhat outside the law. One of Larsson's villains, Ronald Niedermann (a.k.a. "blond hulk"), has much in common with the invulnerable, sociopathic giant named Simon Delicata in the fourth Modesty Blaise book A Taste for Death. Personal Life Edit As recounted by himself, when Larsson was 15 years old he witnessed the gang rape of a girl, which led to his lifelong abhorrence toward violence and abuse against women. The author never forgave himself for failing to help the girl, whose name was Lisbeth - like the young heroine of his books, who is also a rape victim.

This haunting memory was what inspired the themes of sexual violence against women in his books. Bibliography Stieg Larsson, Anna-Lena Lodenius: Extremhögern, Stockholm, 1991 Stieg Larsson, Mikael Ekman: Sverigedemokraterna: den nationella rörelsen, Stockholm, 2001 Stieg Larsson, Cecilia Englund: Debatten om hedersmord: feminism eller rasism, Stockholm, 2004 Richard Slätt, Maria Blomquist, Stieg Larsson, David Lagerlöf m.fl.: Sverigedemokraterna från insidan, 2004 Fiction Edit The Millennium series: Män som hatar kvinnor ("Men Who Hate Women"), 2005. English translation by Reg Keeland under the title The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, January 2008. US release September 16, 2008. Flickan som lekte med elden ("The Girl Who Played with Fire"), 2006. English translation by Reg Keeland under the title The Girl Who Played with Fire, January 2009.

US release July 28, 2009. Luftslottet som sprängdes ("The Air Castle that was Blown up"), 2007. English translation by Reg Keeland under the title The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest, October 2009 (UK release). US release date May, 2010. Periodicals edited From 'Dragon Tattoo' To The 'Spider's Web': Stieg Larsson's Heroine Returns : The Two-Way : NPR Noomi Rapace stars as heroine Lisbeth Salander in the Swedish film adaptation of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Nordisk Film/The Kobal Collection hide caption toggle caption Nordisk Film/The Kobal Collection Noomi Rapace stars as heroine Lisbeth Salander in the Swedish film adaptation of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Nordisk Film/The Kobal Collection Just about a full decade since the girl with a dragon tattoo was introduced to readers, she'll be making her grand return to fiction — albeit with another author's name on the cover. Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy of crime novels is set to become something more on Sept.

1, when the series' new addition hits store shelves as The Girl in the Spider's Web. Publisher Alfred A. Knopf released the book's title and cover art Tuesday. Of course, the series is carrying on without its original architect, replacing Larsson with David Lagercrantz, a former crime reporter from Sweden. Larsson died of a heart attack at the age of 50 in 2004, before even the first Millennium novel — The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, in American editions — was published in Sweden. The whole series has been published posthumously. The cover to the book's U.S. edition is designed by the same artist who designed the covers to the original trilogy: Peter Mendelsund . Courtesy of Afred A. Knopf hide caption toggle caption Courtesy of Afred A. Knopf The cover to the book's U.S. edition is designed by the same artist who designed the covers to the original trilogy: Peter Mendelsund . Courtesy of Afred A.

Knopf Lagercrantz, who has the blessing of the Larsson estate and Larsson's Swedish publisher, Norstedts, has made it clear that he plans to keep continuity with the originals — including the series' familiar stars Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist. "Stieg Larsson was a master at creating complex narratives, narratives made all the more forceful because of the journalistic authority with which they were originally written," Lagercrantz said in a statement. "That was something that informed my approach to book four, and I'm confident Millennium readers will identify with the storylines in Spider's Web." Despite Larsson's passing, his publishers have noted that he had planned to continue the books well past the current trilogy. By some accounts, the overarching outline he had in mind included at least an additional seven novels. Article continues after sponsorship Larsson's longtime partner, Eva Gabrielsson disputes this — and her recent objections have stirred controversy since the series' revival was first announced. "Everyone thinks there was some grand scheme," she told AFP just last week, "but no, he had no plan for the first three books and when he started writing the fourth one, it was spontaneous.

He still didn't have a plan." And Gabrielsson hasn't pulled punches, even calling Lagercrantz a "completely idiotic choice" to continue the series. "They say heroes are supposed to live forever. That's a load of crap, this is about money," she said. "It's about a publishing house that needs money, [and] a writer who doesn't have anything to write so he copies someone else." To date, the series has sold some 80 million copies around the world. The new book, much like its characters, has been wrapped in a fair bit of intrigue. Perhaps because of the fear of leaks, Lagercrantz wrote the novel on a computer with no Internet connection, and when he delivered the manuscript to Swedish publishers, he was careful to do so by hand, according to The Guardian . Whatever the secrecy that attended its production, when it goes public in September, it'll go big: The Girl in the Spider's Web will be published simultaneously in 25 countries, with a first printing of 500,000 copies in the U.S. alone. The cover to the book's U.S.

edition is designed by the same artist who designed the covers to the original trilogy: Peter Mendelsund . Courtesy of Afred A. Knopf Originally published on April 1, 2015 6:12 am Just about a full decade since the girl with a dragon tattoo was introduced to readers, she'll be making her grand return to fiction — albeit with another author's name on the cover. Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy of crime novels is set to become something more on Sept. 1, when the series' new addition hits store shelves as The Girl in the Spider's Web. Publisher Alfred A. Knopf released the book's title and cover art Tuesday. Of course, the series is carrying on without its original architect, replacing Larsson with David Lagercrantz, a former crime reporter from Sweden. Larsson died of a heart attack at the age of 50 in 2004, before even the first Millennium novel — The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, in American editions — was published in Sweden. The whole series has been published posthumously.

Lagercrantz, who has the blessing of the Larsson estate and Larsson's Swedish publisher, Norstedts, has made it clear that he plans to keep continuity with the originals — including the series' familiar stars Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist. "Stieg Larsson was a master at creating complex narratives, narratives made all the more forceful because of the journalistic authority with which they were originally written," Lagercrantz said in a statement. "That was something that informed my approach to book four, and I'm confident Millennium readers will identify with the storylines in Spider's Web." Despite Larsson's passing, his publishers have noted that he had planned to continue the books well past the current trilogy. By some accounts, the overarching outline he had in mind included at least an additional seven novels. Larsson's longtime partner, Eva Gabrielsson disputes this — and her recent objections have stirred controversy since the series' revival was first announced. "Everyone thinks there was some grand scheme," she told AFP just last week, "but no, he had no plan for the first three books and when he started writing the fourth one, it was spontaneous.

He still didn't have a plan." And Gabrielsson hasn't pulled punches, even calling Lagercrantz a "completely idiotic choice" to continue the series. "They say heroes are supposed to live forever. That's a load of crap, this is about money," she said. "It's about a publishing house that needs money, [and] a writer who doesn't have anything to write so he copies someone else." To date, the series has sold some 80 million copies around the world. The new book, much like its characters, has been wrapped in a fair bit of intrigue. Perhaps because of the fear of leaks, Lagercrantz wrote the novel on a computer with no Internet connection, and when he delivered the manuscript to Swedish publishers, he was careful to do so by hand, according to The Guardian . Whatever the secrecy that attended its production, when it goes public in September, it'll go big: The Girl in the Spider's Web will be published simultaneously in 25 countries, with a first printing of 500,000 copies in the U.S. alone. Copyright 2015 NPR.

To see more, visit Stieg Larsson's Controversial Legacy - ABC News ABC News Email Stieg Larsson, the Swedish author of the Millennium trilogy, only became world-famous after his death in 2004. His long-time companion Eva Gabrielsson is still fighting for her share of the inheritance, but says she no longer plans to finish his fourth book. Eva Gabrielsson is already waiting on a sunny park bench. She is a middle-aged woman with a penchant for black clothing, both mild-mannered and proud, approachable and shy. Sticking her book into her bag, she suggests taking a walk to show me a building on a hill at the end of the promenade. It has a wonderful view of the Baltic Sea and the series of islands that make up Stockholm. Up there, says Gabrielsson, pointing to the large building, is where Lisbeth Salander lived. Using an assumed name, Lisbeth Salander bought an enormous apartment in the building. She hid there, a place where she felt safe from the members of the murderous sect within the Swedish intelligence service who wanted to kill her, or at least lock her away in an institution.

Gabrielsson talks about how Lisbeth Salander simply showed up in her life one day and took possession of it. She admires Salander for her indomitable spirit and the right she assumes to eradicate the injustice that was done to her. The building on the hill really exists, but Lisbeth Salander is a fictional character, a creation of Stieg Larsson, and a brilliant one at that. A hacker with a photographic memory and little use for other people, this young, anarchic woman is the heroine in Larsson's Millennium trilogy, in which she fights to the death with intelligence agents, the police, her father and her half-brother. But Salander also wreaked havoc on the lives of Larsson and Gabrielsson. Gabrielsson has to smoke a cigarette now. She lived with Larsson for 32 years. Together, they moved from rural northern Sweden to Stockholm. Larsson was a moderately successful journalist who, at some point, began to write a crime novel. He invented a few characters, but they all seemed too virtuous for his taste. Most were the kinds of characters he would have encountered in his surroundings, little more than extensions of his real life.

But Salander was his inspiration, the product of his fantasy, and she became a third party in the relationship. Posthumous Success When Larsson felt pleased with a chapter, he would give it Gabrielsson to read. He became increasingly confident in the crime story, until he eventually said that he had 10 books in his head about Salander and the insanity she encounters. But then he died. One day when the elevator in his building was out of order, Larsson had to climb the 197 steps to his office. He had a heart attack when he reached the top. He had just turned 50. Shortly before his death, Larsson had submitted the third volume in the trilogy to his publisher Norstedts, but not a single book had yet been printed. Today more than 63 million copies of the Millennium trilogy have been sold. Death carries great power. It was probably inevitable that the small world in the small country of Sweden in which Eva, Stieg, their friends and Stieg's family had lived for so many years would fall apart in an instant. The explosion didn't happen immediately, but only after the Millennium trilogy had become a global success.

Gabrielsson describes the effects of Larsson's death and of the millions generated by his books in her own book, "'There Are Things I want You to Know' About Stieg Larsson and Me," which will be released in German translation next week. The book is based on the diary she kept after Larsson's death. She was in the central Swedish city of Falun on that day, Nov. 9, 2004. By the time she arrived at the hospital, it was too late. It was a death without goodbyes, and she remained shaken by it for a long time, during which she was in therapy. Her book conveys her efforts to regain control over her life, and it contains many moving passages. But Gabrielsson aims to achieve more than that with this book. She wanted to examine what actually happened during that time, she says. After this point in the conversation, her quietly spoken sentences are peppered with a few strong words that tolerate no objections, words like truth, justice, human rights and core values. Blood Trumps Love Gabrielsson and Larsson weren't just a couple, but also a leftist action group.

First they were Maoists and then Trotskyists, voicing their criticism of the Swedish welfare state from a leftist point of view. She was an architect, while he worked for a news agency. They managed to make ends meet, and had no children. Like many Swedes of their generation, they were anti-bourgeois. In their social circle, while couples may have been monogamous, they didn't marry. But under Swedish law, a member of an unmarried couple doesn't inherit anything from his or her deceased partner, no matter how long the couple was together. Blood trumps love, unless a will exists, but Larsson hadn't written one. For that reason, the rapidly growing proceeds from the sale of the books and the film rights went to two biological relatives, Larsson's father Erland (his mother Vivianne is dead) and his younger brother Joakim. "The money went to us, but we didn't ask for it," says Erland Larsson, 76. They could have turned down the inheritance, but that wasn't what they wanted. The father and the brother still live in northern Sweden, in a city called Umea.

The father occasionally visited his son in Stockholm and tried to convince him to get married, but the son only laughed at his father's suggestion. The brothers, Stieg and Joakim, were not close and rarely saw each other. After Larsson's death, when his novels suddenly became such a huge success, the widow who isn't a widow under the law sat down with Erland and Joakim Larsson to discuss what should happen next. An agreement seemed possible. But then attorneys took over the case, and an inheritance war ensued -- one in which the Stieg Larsson fan community has participated extensively. Two camps have since formed in Sweden: the (primarily female) Eva camp, with its own website ( and the (primarily male) Larsson camp ( The inheritance dispute is being waged publicly. It culminated when Gabrielsson and Joakim Larsson went on Swedish television to explain their respective positions on the dispute. The widow, invoking a higher form of justice, said that the money had made the two Larssons greedy. Joakim Larsson defended his right to the inheritance and, in his modesty, came across as likeable. A Moral Legacy The lives of the Larssons in Umea have changed very little.

They haven't bought any new houses or new cars. They've established a foundation and support projects that fit Stieg Larsson's image. They offered Gabrielsson a portion of the assets and a seat on the foundation board of directors several times, but she refused to agree to a compromise. Almost eight years have passed since Stieg Larsson's death. One would think it would be enough time to resolve the dispute. No, says 58-year-old Gabrielsson, there is no peace in sight, nor is there a bridge between the parties or even a mediator. Death and money, she says, bring out of people's true character. She explains what she means in her book. One day, Stieg's brother proposed that she marry his father so that she could gain access to the Millennium treasure, she writes. A marriage of convenience, he was quick to add. Joakim Larsson, 55, says it was a joke, an attempt to relieve tension during a difficult meeting with the attorneys. Gabrielsson argues that it isn't about all the money, but about Larsson's moral legacy. She insists that she knows best who Stieg Larsson really was and what he intended to achieve with his books.

If she is to be excluded from the material side of his inheritance, she says, at least she wants to retain the right to interpret his work. She says that she finds it strange that she is now expected to share Stieg Larsson with millions of readers who have formed an image of Larsson as a writer that has little to with Stieg, her soul mate. Readers see him as the inventor of a fantastic story filled with horrific murders and depraved people, a story that keeps coming back to Lisbeth Salander's life story. Everything else, the right-wing conspiracy among intelligence agents, the flood of prostitution and corruption, merely serves as the glaring background to the story. Crime novels are entertainment, a venue for good to prevail over evil, nothing more. Gabrielsson says that the real Stieg Larsson was concerned about injustice in society, both in life and in his books, about truth between people and about solving the crimes that men commit against women. All three books were originally supposed to be titled "Men Who Hate Women." It was Larsson's wish, but one that his publisher, Norstedts, did not fulfill. Larsson's main character, Salander, isn't a victim.

She is a furious woman, a warrior who strikes back with the same brutality she was forced to endure. She is no victim, but rather a perpetrator, a character in a grim world who is turned into something mythical. Real Author in Question Who was Stieg Larsson? What did he want? And did he even write his books himself? Many legends have arisen in the years since his death, and Gabrielsson has contributed to some of them. As a journalist, the real Stieg Larsson was not a great writer. He was saddled with the reputation of not being able to write at all, and it was the blemish of his life. He worked in layout at a press agency for 20 years. He added graphics, sidebars and similar secondary material to articles others had written. On the side, he also wrote selected reviews of new crime novels or new science fiction books, but that was the exception. When he wanted to switch jobs and become one of the editors at the agency, his boss turned him down, saying that writing just wasn't his thing. Later on, he became one of the founders of Expo, a small leftist publication devoted to the fight against right-wing extremism.

Larsson's strength was in research, and his knowledge about neo-Nazis in Scandinavia was encyclopedic. And this was the Stieg Larsson who was supposed to have written the multilayered, sensationally successful trilogy? When he was dead and his books became successful, a few of Larsson's friends gave interviews and others wrote books, all claiming that they had no knowledge of Larsson's literary skills and wondering who the real author was. Some suspected it was Gabrielsson. She had co-authored a number of books about urban planning and was considered the more intellectual of the two. Soon she too was giving interviews that attracted attention. She never claimed directly that she had written the books or even played a major role in co-writing them, but she did drop elaborate hints that her part in the books had not been insignificant at all. It sounded as if she had been Larsson's ghostwriter. These interviews are embarrassing to Gabrielsson today. She says that she constantly discussed the progress of the book project with Stieg. In fact, she says, they were so close that there were times when she didn't know which of them had expressed a new thought.

After Larsson's death, says Gabrielsson, she found notes for other projects that she believed were his, but with her name at the bottom. A Fourth Book? Gabrielsson finds the struggle over interpretation difficult, because it is also a struggle to survive. "When I lost him, a huge part of me was lost with him," she writes in her book. She fought against despair with a ritual that she describes in her book. She found it in the "Edda," an ancient Norse collection of epics. It describes a curse, a "Nid," against one's enemies. A stake with the head of a horse impaled on it is rammed into the ground, with the head pointing in the direction of the mortal enemy. On a New Year's Eve night, Gabrielsson went with a group of friends to the tip of Stockholm's Reimersholme island, where, in the torchlight, she read a long Nid she had written for the "Evil, sly, (and) cowardly": "You who think yourselves above others/You who lead them to misfortune and death." Larsson planned to write 10 books about Salander's adventures.

When he collapsed in his office, he was carrying his laptop in his backpack. There are still many rumors on that laptop, which has become famous because the hard drive allegedly contains the almost complete fourth volume, which Larsson had been working on during the last few weeks of his life. The laptop went with him to the hospital, where Gabrielsson allegedly had it in her hands. And where is it now? Gabrielsson says that she doesn't want to talk about it. In her book, she writes that the fourth volume will be called "The Vengeance of God," in which Salander will free herself of her enemies and demons. According to Gabrielsson, Larsson had already written 200 pages. She also writes that she is capable of finishing the book. But will she? Oh no, says Gabrielsson, she has changed her mind about that. "Stieg is dead. There are three books.

We should leave it at that." Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan 0 Shares Books to Movies: Stieg Larsson’s “Millennium Trilogy” | Borderstan Books to Movies: Stieg Larsson’s “Millennium Trilogy” by Borderstan.com — July 27, 2010 at 12:04 am 0 Mary Burgan is the Borderstan Movie Fan. Mary the Borderstan Movie Fan’s column on movies runs every two weeks. Mary Burgan is a retired professor of English and association executive. Her previous reviews are listed at the end of this post. Some bad books make great movies and some great books are turned into bad movies. I was reminded of this after having finally read the three novels in the international best-selling trilogy by the late Stieg Larsson. And then, of course, I had to see the films of the first two, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played with Fire, which have been running in and around DC for the past several months. The third novel, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, has not yet been released as a film.

The books in Stieg’s Millennium Trilogy are full of extreme violence against women–complete with rape, sadism and incest. There is also official corruption that plays in highly plotted action–all in the service of intricate puzzles that are unraveled by Mikael Blomkvist, an investigative journalist, and Lisbeth Salander, “The Girl,” who is not only a highly tattooed and pierced denizen of Stockholm, but also a bravura computer hacker. If “foreign” detective novels translate easily to the screen because language is not so important as plot in them, then there is some loss in the adaptation of the Tattoo novels. This is because a lot of the plot has to be cut out to make the narrative fit the less than two hours required for most films. Too much plot can sink a movie. A novel can take a lot more, though The Millennium Trilogy sits dangerously low in the water. The Swedish film adaptations of the novels make up for the loss of plot by giving us a more sympathetic Mikael and a fully memorable Lisbeth. She is straight out of the novels, and she carries both the books and the films with her outbursts from brooding silence into justifiable violence.

Her partner in solving puzzles is more attractive in his easy, middle-aged tubbiness and his acne-scarred face in the movie than his younger and hipper version is in the novel. There is not enough time to have him sleep with every woman in sight, for example, and that helps the films concentrate on his relationship with the enigmatic Lisbeth. I found the Dragon Tattoo film mildly entertaining, though others I’ve talked to found it incredibly violent. I guess I missed that because the film was less violent than the novel. As for the Played with Fire movie, I couldn’t see how a non-trilogy reader could make out what was happening without having read The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest. The end result of my submergence in the Girl novels and the films for the past several weeks is that: I am more careful about locking up the house, I don’t worry about my computer passwords because I know how easily they are hacked, I spot possible suspects in the check-out line at Whole Foods, and I feel Swedish, though I still can’t pronounce Blomkvist.

The Girl books and movies owe a lot to American crime films and novels, so I’ve gone back to read Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon (1930); the film was made in 1943. I found the prose of the Hammett tale a bit tough to get used to at first. He sets a lot of store by descriptions of personal looks; Sam Spade’s character never comes through in this treatment, but then we’ve all come to think of Humphrey Bogart as Sam Spade anyhow. The Maltese Falcon: Great Book and Movie The other Falcon characters–Brigid O’Shaughnessy, Joel Cairo, and Kaspar Gutman–are either perfectly described by Hammett or Hollywood found their perfect embodiment in Mary Astor, Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet. By now it’s hard to know which came first, the novel or the movie. Either way, they are unforgettable. And so are their characterizations. I’ll pass on Joel Cairo’s because the portrayal in the book is baldly homophobic, though the movie downplays that somewhat.

But the obsessed Kaspar Gutman is perfectly portrayed by Greenstreet in girth as well as in the deep, wheezy formality of his compliments to Spade, “By Gad, sir, you are a character.” Finally, there is Mary Astor, the “Girl without the Maltese Falcon.” If Lisbeth Salander is the epitome of sullen reticence and explosive violence in The Girl movies, Mary Astor plays Brigid just as breathlessly modest and devious as the novel directs. Spade’s attachment to her is this side of believable until he tells her at the end, “I hope they don’t hang you, precious, by that sweet neck. Yes, angel, I’m gonna send you over. The chances are you’ll get off with life. That means if you’re a good girl, you’ll be out in 20 years. I’ll be waiting for you. If they hang you, I’ll always remember you.” There’s nothing as neat as that line in The Girl movies because there is nothing like it in the books. Some bad books make dandy flicks: see The Godfather. Some good books make lousy movies: see The Great Gatsby.

But The Maltese Falcon is a fine book and a terrific movie. That’s a combination that’s hard to find these days. Other Reviews by The Borderstan Movie Fan

Question: What is the name of the heroine in Steig Larsson's Millennium Trilogy?
Answer: Lisbeth Salander